Not me of course but the new Shadow Chancellor. We'll soon find out whether George Osborne has Balls or not. There are many ways to look at this, "Ed Balls will frighten the Tories" – but he will frighten the voters and no doubt Ed Miliband too. Or as The Rambler Nik writes about a certain irony: "had Ed Miliband appointed Ed Balls as his Shadow Chancellor back in October, the new leader would probably have been able to command a certain amount of authority over his defeated challenger"...not now, especially when this move could be seen as desperation.
What is clear is that "The mark of Mr Brown is now stamped all over the upper end of the shadow cabinet". Alan Johnson is/was well liked, despite not seeming right for the post (oops) he was given - and clearly not able to grasp the details - his departure could be a serious setback for Labour even if only because Ed and Ed are both easily unlikable and with a distinct lack of charm. [Edit, 1300hrs] I like Cranmer's take on it: "...one is an impotent, insecure, political milipede and the other a testosterone-charged rottweiler with a lot of balls...".
I suspect that UK politics is about to become much more fun as does Allister Heath at City A.M.; he explains how Balls is essentially a flawed econmist (and IMHO a Gordon Brown mini-me): boom and bust 'abolished', doomed system of financial regulation, flawed and ignored fiscal policy rules, grossly expanded regulatory burden, hiking public sector employment, labyrinthine over-elaborate systems of incentives, tax credits etc "snaring millions into complex benefits" and reliance on off-balance sheet public sector accounting "with billions of debt hidden from view".
Let the games commence...
2 comments:
I don't think anything will change Ed Balls conviction that his way is the right way. I can't see that politics will get more fun, he will slag off George and George will return the fire.
Fun = idealogical slagging from both sides...yippee!
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